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In Northeast Polls, Jobs, Militancy In Focus

A woman with her family members’ Electoral Photo Identity Card, in Meghalaya, Jan. 25.

Three states in India’s remote northeast will vote later this month to elect new governments in a region that has been marked with violent conflict for decades and very little infrastructure development or industrialization.

While Tripura will vote on Feb. 14, Meghalaya and Nagaland go to polls on Feb. 23. All these states are densely-forested and landlocked, with a large tribal population. They also have high rates of unemployment and widespread poverty.

Both Meghalaya and Nagaland, like several other states in the northeast, have suffered from armed insurgency over the past few decades. Most of the militancy in the area has centered around demands for carving out new states for different ethnicities. Tripura is the only state among the ones headed for polls which has been able to quell the problem of terrorism.

Analysts said militancy has been a major factor in keeping away investments and private sector jobs from the region, although the remoteness of the states, with very few rail and air links, also have dissuaded investors. “The government is the only major employer in northeast, and how many jobs can they alone create?” asks Wasbir Hussein, executive director for Centre for Development & Peace Studies, an Indian think-tank focused on the country’s northeast.

The issue of insurgency is most pronounced in Nagaland, where various factions of the National Socialist Conference of Nagaland have waged an armed conflict for decades, demanding the state should expand its boundaries to include parts of neighboring states where there’s significant populations of Naga tribals. Peace talks have been going on since 1997 between the federal govenment and militant groups but without a formal accord.

While insurgency has been much subdued since 2008, it’s still a major problem. Last week, army personnel said they recovered guns and ammunition from a house in the state’s capital, Kohima.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 814 people have been killed in Nagaland due to insurgency since 2000, with most of the fatalities the result of factional feuds between different militant groups. Incidents of violence, however, has been much subdued over the past five years.

Mr. Hussein said peace and development are the key election issues in Nagaland. Still, the incumbent local government, a coalition of small local parties, is likely to remain in power, said Mr. Hussein. National parties like Congress, which heads India’s federal government, and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party do not have strong networks in the state, he said.

“While there is dissatifaction against the government, given unemployment and price rises, the Congress Party doesn’t have credible leaders in the state to unseat the current government,” Mr. Hussein added.

Congress is the principal opposition party in Nagaland. Sonia Gandhi, the party’s president, campaigned in Nagaland on Thursday to boost its election chances, saying the party favored a peaceful resolution to the insurgency.

Patricia Mukhim, editor of Meghalaya’s leading English daily, Shillong Times, said the elections in the state would be about the emotional connection voters feel for individual candidates, rather than any major issues. “None of the parties are campaigning on the various problems affecting the state. It’s as if we are just fulfilling a constitutional mandate and holding elections, nothing beyond that,” she said.

Ms. Mukhim said the state’s forests are being chopped down and rivers polluted due to unchecked coal and limestone mining, but none of the candidates have talked about reversing the environmental damage.

She said militancy isn’t a big issue in the elections, though incidents of violence continue to take place from time to time. “I personally think these are more antisocial elements rather than committed insurgents,” she added.

Earlier this month, insurgents of the Garo National Liberation Army killed two jail officials in an attack on a Meghalaya prison, but failed to free any of their jailed comrades.

Analysts expect the Congress-led coalition that governs the state to win reelection. But it faces a new challenge from a local party set up recently by Purno Sangma, a former Congress politician and speaker of India’s Parliament, who recently lost the country’s presidential elections to Pranab Mukherjee.

Mr Sangma, a former chief minister of the state, last year set up the a Meghalaya-focused National People’s Party to contest the elections. “I don’t think NPP will be able to unseat the incumbent government,” Ms Mukhim said, adding its influence is limited to a few areas in the state.

Tripura is different from the other two poll-bound states, in that it has a large population of Bengali-speaking people living alongside indigenous tribal populations. The state’s chief minister, Manik Sarkar of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), heads India’s only leftist government, and is regarded as a non-corrupt and efficient administrator who has improved the state’s infrastructure.

Congress, the chief opposition party, has, however, been buoyed by the decision of another opposition party, the Trinamool Congress, led by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, to not field any candidates in these elections. Analysts, though, expect the incumbent administration to win reelection.

“I don’t think the government faces much of a challenge in Tripura,” said Samiran Roy, a political commentator, based in the state capital, Agartala. “The state’s stable law and order situation and brisk pace of development activities are likely to ensure the incumbent comes back to power.”